Managing union management

Management is a function, as well as a class of people. In this article, network member Ken Margolies discusses the management function within unions. It’s a subject he knows pretty well, having written a thesis about it. However, despite some great work by Ken and others, we are still a long way from a union theory of management. We know that command-and-control leads to endless problems, but we are still scratching our heads over what to do instead. Perhaps one place we could start is within our own organisations – labor unions. It seems unlikely that we can meet the challenges ahead unless we learn to manage ourselves (and others) better.

Can unions meet the challenges ahead without being better managers?

If managing is working with and through people to get things done, then unionists need to become good managers. But ask nearly anyone in the labor movement how well unions manage staff and you will probably get mostly negative answers — once they stop coughing nervously.

Unionists who find themselves responsible for supervising and managing their union’s staff are not only often unprepared, skill-wise, but they also have a strong aversion to being managers. As a result, staff get inadequate direction when they need it and sometimes too much direction when they don’t. Feedback is erratic and only reluctantly given, until the union managers get fed up — at which point they emulate the bosses they criticize and make a mess of it.

When I conduct training for union-managers through Cornell University, I begin by asking participants to state what comes to mind when I say, “management.” Countless times their responses include words like “evil,” “enemy,” “assholes” and more explicit descriptors. In further discussion, participants express how uncomfortable they are being managers.

Managers in unions often view their supervisory duties as “extra” work that pulls them away from what they like and at which they excel, such as bargaining or campaigning. A general counsel of a union had a small epiphany when he realized that he loved handling cases but hated supervising others doing that job. One manager, after attending the Cornell workshop, decided to request a different job within her union because she realized managing was not for her.

This may not be surprising considering that unionists are typically elevated to supervisory jobs for reasons other than their ability to manage. According to one leader of a union, “Not much priority is placed on being a good manager. The qualities to move up don’t necessarily include being a competent manager. If people thought about it they would say it is important. But charisma and strength are valued more.”

While the negative view of being a manager was most common, there are union managers who accept their role. The chief of staff of a large union told me, “I make it clear in the interview process that being an efficient manager is something that the members expect and deserve from you and if you are not ready to do that this isn’t the job for you.” One of the supervisors in that union said, “The chief of staff is very clear that my job is to be a manager. Those managers with problems are the ones who have trouble getting past personal feelings.”

However, even in this local some of the supervisors expressed ambivalence, “I had to fire someone and it hurt me to have to put them out of a job, but on the other hand they were not performing, which is a disservice to the members.”

In summing up the importance of “owning” the management role, one manager from a union noted, “If I thought of myself as a manager from the beginning I would have made fewer mistakes.”

It’s about a system, not a form

When unions decide to try to hold staff more accountable they usually start by looking for the right performance appraisal form. This leads to a mechanical procedure focused on “rating” performance rather than efforts to help staff develop. Boiling their performance management down to an annual review meeting where staff are rated on a standard form is a mistake that unions, as well as many other organizations, repeatedly make.

A much more effective alternative is developing a culture of continuous feedback — both positive and corrective. Few organizations, and no unions that I know of, have created such a culture. This is likely due not only to a reluctance to give feedback, time pressures, and other organizational and cultural obstacles, but also because performance management is viewed as an event rather than as a system. A performance management system looks at how organizations set goals and expectations and how they hire, select, orient, train and develop staff. It includes how staff are treated and how disputes are handled, what is rewarded and punished, and other structural and cultural dynamics.

When parts of the system conflict it impedes the union from carrying out its strategies. For example, many union leaders tell staff to spend time and effort identifying and developing rank and file leaders. Sometimes this is reinforced by training for staff on how to identify and work with activists who can address issues previously handled by the staff. However, many unions measure and give positive recognition to those staff who bring in the most political fund donation cards, fill busses for rallies, or turn out members for events regardless of how they get it done. Staff who do not reach their numerical goals in the short run because they are developing rank and file leaders are criticized, while staff who hustle and collect cards themselves are the heroes.

While training is part of the system that should be aligned with the union’s strategies, some labor educators report that many unions view training in isolation. Few unions make training plans to coincide with upcoming priorities like contract negotiations or other campaigns. On the other hand, when union leaders encounter difficulties achieving their goals they may provide training to staff when, in fact, the solutions they need also require structural and cultural changes. For example, one union tried to improve staff performance by devoting significant resources to training their managers. However, the efforts stalled when it became clear that whenever a supervisor tried to hold staff accountable they could often go to someone with more authority who would tell the supervisor to back off.

Unions seeking a quick fix rather than a more systematic approach to holding staff accountable and improving members’ view of the union may track measures such as the number of worksites visited by staff. Representatives in one union who were required to report these metrics revealed that low-performing staff were easily thwarting the effort since there was no qualitative component. As a result, union leaders knew how many work site visits were made but had no way of knowing whether anything valuable was accomplished. One union supervisor summed up the situation, “Some of the poor performers have been reps so long they know how to get over.” At the same time, high-performing staff who might make fewer but better visits become cynical because they feel mistrusted, second-guessed and resentful of the extra paper work.

In some cases unions end up with low-performing staff because they hire the wrong people. In recruiting and selecting staff it is common for unions to look primarily for dedication to the cause, loyalty and the ability to inspire members. Factors such as emotional intelligence, writing ability, experience outside the labor movement, whether the candidate is a good fit for the team and job, and an ability to grow and develop into more responsible positions with the union often are overlooked.

Unions not satisfied with how they manage staff performance

A union official who has worked for multiple unions said, “I don’t think the evaluation systems and accountability systems are very strong in unions, and accountability is the part of supervising that union people have the most problem with. Unions have high tolerance for people who are not doing what they are supposed to.”

After confirming that all comments were totally anonymous, one official shared that, because of politics, “There are people here who are grossly incompetent and there is no culture to do anything about mediocre performance. There are some high performers, but over all I’m not very satisfied with the performance of the staff.”

Another union representative was even blunter about how tolerant the union is of marginal performance, “We say you have to be an idiot to lose this job.”

According to the HR director of a large union, one result of tolerating poor performance is that some union leaders and managers eventually explode and demonstrate the most egregious behaviors of the worst bosses, demanding that the staff person be fired or disciplined without any documentation or progressive discipline.

Instead of utilizing the kinds of procedures unions demand employers use, some union leaders use informal means to induce unwanted staff to quit or retire. One union leader reported that for every staff person hired there is a resignation letter on file to be used if necessary. If informal efforts fail, the union may put a person in a role “where they can do the least harm.” Besides being a poor use of union resources, doing this undermines the morale of high-performing staff whose main reward for doing well is more work while little is demanded of the lower performers.

Politics

Several union leaders agreed with a statement made by an experienced union official, “Because it [a union] is a democratic organization those being supervised can use politics to influence those who supervise them. It’s hard to set standards for people when they have access to the politics of the union.” Another leader added, “Union staff tend to excel based on loyalty rather than job skill.” A manager from a large union reported that, “I busted a staffer who was sleeping around and falsifying records, so he organized members to picket the union office.”

Some representatives are elected themselves or have the right to run against the elected leadership, which gives them leverage to get their way and avoid being managed. On the other hand, hard-working and dedicated staff might find themselves hampered by nervous elected leaders who do not want them doing anything that might jeopardize the leader’s position. If staff do what they think is right but it causes them to run afoul of the union’s politics, they may find themselves in trouble despite doing a good job for the members. The president of a staff union indicated that one of the primary reasons the staff organized was to “insulate ourselves from the politics so we can do our jobs for members without regard for who has political connections or not.”

Supervising skilled anti-authoritians

Perhaps no one understands the vulnerabilities of performance appraisal systems better than full time union representatives who regularly challenge them on behalf of members who feel unfairly evaluated. Union representatives advise members to say as little as possible, don’t admit any wrong doing (at least initially), and get a representative to do most of the talking, if possible. If those same representatives are being appraised by their union supervisor and they follow their own advice then the resulting appraisal meeting is unlikely to be productive.

Combining anti-authoritarian staff skilled at protecting members from potentially harmful evaluations with managers reluctant to conduct evaluations within a superficial performance management system is a recipe for a very dysfunctional process. Based on interviews with both union representatives and managers within unions, what follows describes common types of behaviors exhibited at annual performance review meetings.

Reluctant and/or unskilled evaluators fail to provide clear feedback, instead hinting at issues or qualifying corrective action. Staff leave the meeting either confused or confident that they got a good evaluation without picking up on the suggestions for improvement.

Supervisors eager to get through an unpleasant meeting who have a negative view of an employee’s performance may clumsily lay out harsh criticisms without demonstrating full knowledge of the person’s work. Staff then go into defensive/offensive mode and may attack the evaluation process and challenge the supervisor’s knowledge of the work or qualifications to evaluate it or invoke the ultimate insult, “you are just like the management we fight.”

Other staff strategies include blaming alleged unsatisfactory results on external factors, of which there are many. They are careful about what they say and may demand that the supervisor justify any negative ratings. Faced with these tactics supervisors may either shift to giving positive feedback to get off the hook or react in anger and counter with accusations and harsh criticism.

Supervisors who decide that the staffer will not heed corrective feedback or those who lack the skill to effectively counsel employees may do exactly what they are being accused of—act like the management the union opposes on behalf of their members. In those cases they use the performance appraisal to create a paper trail that can be used against staff in the future. When the supervisor is in this mode and the union representative is in defensive mode the appraisal meeting becomes like a chess game, with both sides choosing their words carefully and trying to out-maneuver the other while establishing a record of the meeting favorable to their position. This obviously prevents a productive discussion of what the staff person does well and could do better.

Encouraging signs

For unions to have successful HR and labor relations strategies regarding staff development and accountability, they need to practice better alternatives than either neglect or the too common dysfunctions described above. They need to take a systematic approach to performance management. Fortunately, there are encouraging signs and best practices from which to learn.

One chief of staff said, “Accountability is hardwired into our organization” and went on to explain in detail how this was part of an ambitious strategic plan for the union that includes working with a consultant who, “is helping us develop our own model of talent management.” That union’s practices include, “Staff involved in planning the work, working the plan and evaluating the results”… a formal evaluation system focused on individuals’ development” and, “defined objectives with a measure to them so we can evaluate by numbers combined with a culture of debriefings as qualitative tool.”

This staff chief went on to say, “We believe it is key for us to remember that accountability has to be part of a value system which has to be shared by workers so they keep each other accountable rather than accountable to a manager which sets up a dynamic we don’t like.” She went on to say,“The thing I’m interested in is how to evaluate talent in a way that is inspirational; we try to invent ways to recognize staff but I think we aren’t always as creative at that as we could be. We want to improve staff satisfaction and retention, because it’s so tough to work for a union now.”

The chief of staff at a different union said that he and his other managers see themselves as, “driving the organization forward, holding staff accountable and thinking about their development. Our organization is moving in a different direction and we are pushing staff to understand.”

At another union the managers worked with a facilitator to analyze their performance management system and found that their inability to be more effective was causing high turnover and short-staffing. Consequently, they assigned a manager to work on recruitment and retained a “headhunter.” They found that the high turnover was due to personal/family situations; they will look more closely at whether the way they select staff needs to be changed.

Officers at a large union hired a new director with experience aligning HR and labor relations (HR/LR) strategies with the goals of an organization. He found high staff turnover, that the union was often hiring the wrong people, and that many managers were unable or unwilling to do their job well. The new director put considerable time and resources into training of management staff, which also included an explanation of the union’s expectations of them and a presentation of the union’s new HR/LR policies. These included different approaches to hiring criteria, more staff training, and other measures to reduce turnover.

A union whose managers attended Cornell training and decided to think more systematically reported that as a result of taking a broader view of who they hire, “We put much more emphasis on hiring people complementary to the rest of us.”

A labor lawyer representing union clients said, “Unions are going through great lengths to re-organize and re-structure, more people are trying to ‘clean house’ and renewing training initiatives and other ways to and improve performance.”

A person assigned to HR functions in her union made the point few unions of a similar size had anyone with those duties and concluded, “It’s an indication of the vision of the president of our union that he saw fit to put such emphasis on making sure the staff were treated well and held accountable.”

A union official with experience working for a number of unions hit the nail on the head when he said, “labor unions need a different vision of relationships between managers and supervisors and union staff and employees that ought to be a different model than corporate America”

The quotations from union leaders and staff contained in this article are from interviews performed by the author and by Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations students, Kirsten Bass, Alex Bores and Edward Christian, supervised by the author and Cornell Professor Emerita, Lois Gray as well as electronic surveys conducted from 2009 – 2011. This article is a version of a much longer Master’s Thesis on the subject the author produced for a Master’s In Professional Studies from Cornell University. The thesis, “Human Resource Strategy for Labor Unions: Oxymoron, Chimera or Contributor to Revival” (MS #1003), is accessible here: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/monograph/4

Ken Margolies is a Senior Associate at the newly created Worker Institute at Cornell, part of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He has been on the staff of four unions, SEIU, the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA and the Teamsters and has been a steward in a union staff union as well as an Organizing and Education Director with management responsibilities.

If you’d like to read more on the subject of union management, here’s an earlier interview we did with network member Alex Twigg: http://goo.gl/FCz3P

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24 Responses to “Managing union management”

With all the issues that unions face, sometimes it’s hard to prioritize better management of staff – but that is EXACTLY what is needed. A majority of my 20-year career has been working for a union, sometimes in the role as manager, other times as staff. Union leaders have got to get past the baggage they feel about management from the grievance hearings and bargaining table opponents. By belittling management skills or training, they are doing a great disservice to their staff who are woefully overworked. Good employees become the ‘beaten work horses” doing everything while precious resources are wasted on employees who shuffle papers and add to the burden of good colleagues.

Yes, we have governors like Walker and Kasich to contend with; we have Right-to-Work-for-less, we have drawn out contract negotiations, 24/7/365-day election cycle, we barely have a way to conduct new organizing – and that is just scratching the surface. That is precisely why good managers are needed. We do have good soldiers, but they need to be appropriately taken care of. And we need to recognize who the bad ones are, rehabilitate who we can, and get rid of the rest. And we need good generals to lead us into this fight.

Ken and Eileen are right. I know because I worked with her at one union (actually 2) and for a number of other unions for years before “going to the dark side” into management before becoming a neutral.

Part of the problem I saw was pure projecting – blaming corporate management for unions’ failures in managing their own staffs – rather than reinventing their own way of motivating and supervising. One could say it is inevitable that rank-and-file union members who are pulled from the ranks into union management were taught how to manage before they worked full-time for their union and never got a coherent message from their union supervisor different from their supervisor or manager while working directly for the corporation. Top-down corporate management dominates areas where unions are most successful in organizing. That is no surprise. They are less satisfied employees and ripe for organizing. When a union seeks (or permits) the employer’s management style to be superimposed on the union (I call it mirror imaging and do not think it works well), top-down management has the same effect: a disempowered, often confused staff that has little idea why they are performing tasks or why their performance matters.

Union staff that come from the rank and file could easily write a long list of what they believe is wrong with corporate management. Identifying those problems is an opportunity for union management to behave the way they want corporate management to behave. Every single union employee should be (yes, it’s an HR term but I’ll use it anyway)”onboarded”. They should be given a clear vision statement of the union’s role, how the employee’s role dovetails with that vision, an expectation that their ideas to improve processes will be evaluated and discussed and a real sense there is a career path within the organization and clear information on how to move up with examples they can imitate to get there. Unions that sit at a bargaining table demanding more training, more upward mobility, some influence over decision-making, work flexibility (including flexible hours, use of leave time, working from home when possible, etc.), cannot maintain credibility with their staff if they will not entertain those same ideas for their own employees.

Unions can drop the word “management” altogether if they choose to do so. “Coaches”, “team leaders”, etc. are not just words if unions choose to make them real and different from traditional “management”. 360 degree evaluations that are real and tied to promotional opportunities and a component of compensation may sound horrifying to traditional industrial unionists but there is a reason to consider them. Bad supervisors exist everywhere. Employees need a way of expressing their dissatisfaction or a structured way to praise their supervisor.

Another way of evaluating and addressing the problem is for the union to look at the happiest managers in the corporation. Often, they are not operations supervisors or managers because they often receive little training on how to manage effectively. In my experience, some of the most satisfied managerial employees work exclusively in labor relations. They often come from colleges and universities with specific training in effective management. If the Vice President of labor relations at a company trains his or her subordinates and gives them clear direction and the authority to settle or even withdraw disciplinary cases or to settle significant contract interpretation disputes, those employees are more apt to feel valued, confident and satisfied. They may be painted by the union as the true villains – the men and women who tell operations managers “no” to an idea when it might benefit rank-and-file employees – but that is rare and beside the point. More than once, relatively early in my managerial role for a large public agency, I took calls from attorneys I supervised and was asked, for example, whether they could settle a disciplinary case for a 10 day suspension instead of a 20 day suspension. Answer? ‘Why are you asking me that question now, while you are at a hearing and without talking to me earlier if you had concerns? Isn’t that why I hired you? If I did not trust your judgment, you would not be permitted to settle anything without my approval. I can’t do the work of 15-20 attorneys. Make the decision, be able to explain why it was rational and I will support your decision and take the heat myself if it blows up.’ If unions do not believe that is an important component of good management, they are doomed to repeat many mistakes made by operations management in their dealings with employees.

Unions would benefit from having a professionally trained HR manager from outside the ranks to coordinate training, deal with compensation, statutory benefits, etc. and TRUST them. Unions are notorious for failing to trust ‘the college kids’, often pay them poorly on the theory they are rich kids with no student loans and are doing the work on some nobless oblige theory (absolutely ridiculous,in my view) and lose them in two years when their knowledge of the organization has fully ripened. That’s self-defeating and paranoid. It also saddles supervisors coming from the rank-and-file with burdens that often get in the way of executing the vision of the organization.

Finally, I would ask the least compensated rank-and-file union employee whether he/she can tell me the difference between a service model and organizing model of union activity, whether they can co-exist and which one their union either practices or favors and how they know it. If the employee cannot answer those question, I guarantee that more than one union employee needs to be trained much better. They will all at some point have to deal with corporate management. They will be eaten alive if they don’t know more than which bin to put grievances in and where to deliver them. Every single person working for a union must be considered essential to its mission and frequently told so. If you don’t think your clerical employee is smart, you’re most likely wrong. They know more than you think and if unions dispute that, they are no better than bad managers of corporations. Spending a few well-placed dollars to get someone like Ken Margolies to do critical training is an excellent investment and, in my opinion, contribute to a better and more harmonious relationship with employers that can only benefit their membership.

Now Eileen (and maybe Ken) can tell me with great authority I am verbose and opinionated. Actually, my hope is selfish. It’s always better, as a neutral, to deal with sophisticated parties that have a healthy bargaining relationship and respect one another.

Ken usefully lays out some of the pain points at the heart of the union management conundrum. For a union theory of management, unions probably have to go within because corporations, although they are synonymous with management, don’t have it figured out. The diagnosis of the obstacles are important to identifying and evaluating ways of addressing them. If unions excel at uncovering and developing talented leaders, how can this be a strength? As some of these leaders move up the ranks, they also operate as good managers. Hearing their voices and their lessons can be a pathway to identifying a union theory of management. Going within, earnestly and honestly, holds the promise of what David usefully refers to above as, “reinventing their own way of motivating and supervising.” But some of the problems described here go beyond management to issues of strategy, policy and politics. With Wisconsin, the pressures to change keep mounting and unions need to pursue multiple pathways to wrestling these problems if they are going to be viable countervailing force in the 21st century.

A Greek Chorus is developing. That’s probably a good sign. The challenge of effectively managing a union staff in the wake of all of the attacks on collective bargaining rights, public employee salaries and their rights to due process before being discharged is daunting, primarily because union structures and priorities change because they are in a reactive posture. If unions can rapidly and successfully redirect limited resources to so much change that was not of their making, they can also leave union management structures fluid enough to adapt to new challenges. At least to me, it is possible to use the talent available to them to constantly reconsider how to manage effectively without depriving their staff of a measure of predictability or to explain why a lock-step focus on internal predictability could derail the organization’s core mission to the detriment of every staff member. That requires a few excellent communicators whether they are managers or not. Vision does not need to change. Missions that underly a coherent vision can and do change and may require a reshuffling of responsibilities of every staff member. If properly communicated, it can motivate staff provided they are treated as partners in the enterprise and understand the criticality of every staff member’s role. The time spent communicating with union staff is far from a waste of time. It can actually be an extremely valuable investment of time. Unions can be described as “businesses” because they are selling something – a promise that each employee matters and deserves a living wage, a voice and a clear understanding of their role. If they can tell corporate management what good managers ought to be doing, they can certainly tell their own staff the same thing.

In most of my time in the labor movement there has rarely been a “job” as a manager. Managing is one role of a Union leader but all the managers I work with, myself included, have staff responsibilities like negotiating, problem solving, organizing, recruiting and training leaders, etc.

We need to think of the management role as simply being in charge of coordinating certain functions and having certain responsibilities within the organization but not in the same “hierarchy” as corporate management.

There is a real distinction between many staff who come from the rank and file and college educated “outsiders” who are hired into the Union. If not carefully managed what should be complimentary skills coming from diverse backgrounds can be points of conflict.

We have tried to overcome that in the various incarnations of the Union I belong to (the Southern Region of Workers United,SEIU, Unite Here, Unite, ACTWU etc.) by trying to manage by consensus and with cross cut decision making. For instance staff meetings and training sessions are planned with a committee of staff who are represented by their own Union, and supervisors. So we have all sorts of perspectives on what the content, delivery system and evaluation of training should be.

We are not always successful, but the idea that everyone has a right and a responsibility to contribute helps to bring a commitment to training. We try to do the same thing with organizational planning. Because we operate in the RTW South we emphasize membership growth and development of rank and file leaders (quantity and quality). Planning education for rank and file, developing materials, deciding on goals, etc is the responsibility of all the staff, or we hope it is.

We spent a lot of time on workplace empowerment when that was so popular and have tried to embody the best of what we said companies should do into our organization. Unfortunately, we are so overwhelmed by our day to day work that we don’t often step back to evaluate how well we do this. I know we could do this better.

The problem is clear and clearly articulated by Ken. The solution is not so clear. We like to say that working for the union is a cause not a job but in reality we end up with all of the problems described by Ken. I like the quote: “We believe it is key for us to remember that accountability has to be part of a value system which has to be shared by workers so they keep each other accountable rather than accountable to a manager which sets up a dynamic we don’t like.” How to implement this may be key to solving the problem

Thoughtful and thought provoking–I’ll be using it to challenge our union staff to find themselves and explore what issues resonate. I particularly appreciated the comparison between meeting goals and developing leaders in the field and comparing it to union managers.

I was getting pretty disheartened by the state of management practices within unions as described by this article until I got to the quote from a union staff chief who said, “We believe it is key for us to remember that accountability has to be part of a value system which has to be shared by workers so they keep each other accountable rather than accountable to a manager which sets up a dynamic we don’t like…The thing I’m interested in is how to evaluate talent in a way that is inspirational…” This manager (yes, she really sounds like one) has an insight that has resonated in many kinds of organizations: the link between organizational values and management practices and processes. I suggest that a focus on the inspiring principles and values of the particular union and unionism is a great starting point. When staff sign on to those values, they also sign on to a way or working that upholds them. Too much of what the union members and leaders in the article talked about was a focus on ‘management’ as a separate or top layer over the real work. When values are the driver, competencies and expected outcomes for each area of work become important (and managing performance is about those outcomes rather than ratings). Let the values lead–this has been successfully applied in many other settings where the foundational values are much, much weaker than the social justice values labor unions uphold.

Very nicely put. Whatever the organization, values (or vision) ought to come first. Otherwise, a staff becomes unmoored and have little sense of why they are doing particular tasks or their importance. Whether corporate or union-based, the minute employees find themselves in that posiiton, the smartest among them will begin to look elsewhere for a job with a clear sense of the importance of their contribution.

I really enjoyed reading this–because it gets to the heart of the problems: we don’t train people to manage and we don’t respect “management” which we somehow conflate with managing the staff/resources of the members. We all know these things are at best silly and at worst barriers to success–but we are only inching towards fixing them.

I also want to add another element–this refusal to teach supervisor/leadership skills undermines building a diverse leadership. Most unions strive (or should) to include more women, people of color and rank-and-file members into their leadership ranks. However, too many times a person is promoted who lacks the skills to carry out their role as a supervisor/manager or leader. All of us have seen people flounder in their roles and become thought of as a “token.”

The truth is, traditionally, white men feel comfortable managing other people, while women, people of color and the working class have not seen that as their role. If we really want a leadership that reflects our membership, we must give everyone who can lead, the tools to manage.

No organization, profit or non-profit, can be effective without management. Do not confuse management with leadership. Union’s have many great leaders but that doesn’t neccesarily translate to good management which is a learned craft. In these economic times good management is a crucial skill as it should address how to best utilize diminishing resources.

While I mostly agree with this article and with the approach and great work of Ken and the Worker Institute, I would like to add something that arises out of my many years’ experience as a union staff officer and as a “management consultant” for unions. At the Workplace Fairness Institute, we offer some of the same services that Ken has talked about. But simply put, what is missing from the analysis is an understanding that the very challenges posed by this article are also opportunities.

We should not be trying to replicate employer practices just because unions are also employers. Instead we should be learning from them and improving upon them. At the WFI we believe that union employers have the potential to be far better at being employers. There is no question that the axiom “unions make the worst employers” is true in many circumstances.

However, with the right training, keeping in mind the vision and goals of the union, most unions can make excellent employers. Employment practices can take place in a properly understood anti-oppression environment, can benefit from the keen understanding unions have of the exigencies of the abuse of employer power, and can have the result of restoring the passion that union staff had when they devoted their lives to the movement.

Although this is not always the case, our experience leads us to believe that the vast majority of union staff are devoted to the success of the labour movement (sometimes even more so than their employer). This can be built upon. With the right focus on staff development within the context of the union movement, there will be increased morale and productivity from union staff.

Union staff are uniquely placed to secure the future of the movement in general. Instead of being relegated to positions of silence (which often happens as the employer acts like an employer) they should also be encouraged in structured ways to participate in the greater democratic process. They have much to offer – in many cases much more to offer then their employers – in terms of solutions to the issues that are plaguing the union movement internationally.

The most engaged union staff are treated like part of the team rather just employees that need to be managed with carrots and sticks. In my respectful view, acting like a good employer is not sufficient – unions must instead actively engage their staff individually and collectively to make them feel like they are a part of the team. And this goes well beyond what normal employers want or expect out of their employers.

The real problem with Unions is that they employ the wrong people from the start. People with the wrong values, the wrong atitude and skills base. The theory behind their appointments is that “they know someone” sad but true.

Until interviews are conducted fairly then this problem will always exhist.

I think that the debate on how union HR and management is practiced and how it could be developed gives an opening for an honest debate, thank you for that opening.
That said two points form my side or maybe three. The trade union organizations act as families. Getting the dirty laundry out in the open is considered to be betrayal, and many honest but critical people have paid a hard prize for this. So trade unions are besides being a political organization, also very emotional based.
Than the political complications, that you can compare with civil servants working for local or national government, are as you mentioned a specific problem. When challenged many organizations who want to change focus on what is be they want the employee to do and they will try to check this, and therefor the organizations become more bureaucratic, topdown and hereby frustrating many people in the movement.
A trade union is not a normal organization and cannot be compared with one, but that indeed doesn’t mean they cannot improve. To do so they have to recognize what they are, and the leadership has to dear to address this in the movement overall.
If you read “Megachange” by Joyce he says any organization can only change fundamentally if top down and bottom up develop together. This I think is key to a movement like a trade union. As long as output and goals are not developed in that way, and all parties have committed to the same outcome, all the “bad” examples that you address will never disappear.
It is the year of the dragon, the year of fundamental change, membership declines everywhere, time to think what kind of movement you want to be and what kind of vision you have on workers now and in the future, including those that work for your movement.

Unions share a basic structure with most other organizations in the world and also, therefore, share their problems. They can be transformed in the same way that these other organizations are transformed, by changing the underlying design principle that leads to this top down, authoritarian structure. Peter Hall Jones and I wrote about this in this newsletter a few editions ago and should any unions want to have a go at this, I am always happy to help, ME

Great observations. The use by unions of a systemic process and better use of feedback will go a long way. But the inculcation by the elected officers and the alignment of staff to the mission of the union (or other organization) will work wonders. Along with this – Unions must commit to becoming “learning organizations”. What has carried us thus far, will not guaranty a storied future. All of this – a systemic approach, feedback and continuous learning will require support, training and mentoring for some and coaching for other. Wthout the big three, systemic process, alignment and continuous organizational learning – we are destined to repeat past errors and omissions.

I think this article makes a really important contribution to understanding and explaining the unique challenges of managing in a union environment. As a director in a large national Canadian union, I have worked hard to improve management practices and skills, not just for the sake of doing so, but because I think it is critical to successful union renewal. In trying to strengthen management, however, I agree with Ken that we can’t just borrow from employers in the private and public sector. It’s important to consider what makes unions unique as organizations and to adapt or develop tools and practices that are suited to our distinct purpose and structure as democratic, movement-based organizations. A few years ago I wrote a research essay on this for a Political Economy degree at Carleton University whiuh I am happy to share as part of the discussion: http://www3.sympatico.ca/orfald-clarke/unionrenew/

I have also worked in a medium-sized, statewide labor union as both a rank-and-file staffer and Chief of Staff. The most significant challenge I’ve witnessed is the confusion of elected leadership about the respective roles of staff, management and elected leadership. When elected leaders begin micromanaging staff managers and participate in the day-to-day functions of the union, the structure falls apart; and because they are the “leaders” of the union, they are empowered to make whatever decisions they see fit, regardless of the impact on how well the union functions. The highest functioning unions do a good job of clearly defining roles and responsibilities of both elected leaders, staff and management – then make it clear that they respect those roles.

When elected leaders participate in day-to-day management, the level of political involvement makes effective management impossible, and all the problems discussed above fester without any chance of improvement. The sad thing is, besides union staff being baffled about what is expected of them, the members do not get the kind of service they deserve; their leaders are too preoccupied in the day-to-day operations of the union; the staff are too preoccupied trying to figure out how best to stay out of trouble; management is too preoccupied just trying to clarify staff expectations and defining the respective roles of staff, leadership and management.

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We have two full time reps in our office for a Federal Agency. How in the collective bargaining process can I keep management out of the unions decision of who those full time reps will be. Management desires to control who can be those full time reps based on their skill set…. where there may be less than 5 total persons with a critical skill. I believe management does not have the right under Chapter 7116 USC

A serious attempt to make sense of better ways to organize trade unions inside is not only to be respected, but to be of influence of current debates. It is really time for trade unions to become more professional without loosing their drive!